well I been practicing and I have finally learn coloring, shding, and everything but I cannot get my pictures to look "real" I mean I can color lineart but I can never get them to look whithout the lines and stuff. I draw out my pictures first though but I seen a lot of wonderful art here that don't have those lines and started from sketches and read some tuts but it never explains that. Can anyone help me?

Everyone works differently. so i suggest u work in a way that is comfortable to u. I think the perspective is off in your sketch, i suggest u spend more time in the sketching phase, cuz i find that once the sketch is well composed, the rest is easy. Also, never paint on a white surface!! Except if u looking for the commercial style feel. Paint on a off-white surface is easier for the colors and good lighting. Don't just use white for the highlights and black for the shadows, cuz they have colors too, its pretty hard to explain in words but i would suggest u look at some traditionnal paintings or linda bergkvist had some really good color mixing tutorials.

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"Every Child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once one grows up"

You mentioned that you learned drawing and shading and whatnot, but did not say that you have mastered "value", which is what define form to a collection of colors. Your drawing is lacking in variation of values so it looks flat. Take a look at this article:

a key to realism are definately colors.
You can turn the same linework into manga style and/or make it look totally realistic just with different colors.

You made some beginners mistake and I am not sure how much of theory you have read about colors and values yet.

First of all - don't paint on a white background. Colors get influenced by eachother. Skin color reacts on ambient light and what colors someone is wearing for example.
Besides white lets colors that lay next to it look quite different then they actually are.

If you'd turn your painting into grayscale you would notice that it lacks a lot of values meaning you need more highlight and shadows. That doesn't mean more white and black though.
The next point would be the different shadows that make up forms..

There are some more little mistakes a lot of people do (add more subtle colors to your skin tones for example). You might want to check out some tutorials about color theory.

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"Life beats down and crushes the soul, but art reminds you that you have one."

I struggle with color when it comes down to realism, but what I have learned is that skin is transparent. paint transparently, I also would suggest, not painting on a white canvas! Happy hunting dude good luck!

Actually, I think it could be clarified a bit. If you're talking about painting "realistically" then your primary concern (ESPECIALLY when dealing with color) should be value (the range of light to dark). Remember that every color has a value, and you can't forget that this is how you define the form. If your values are off, no clever use of color is going to make that image look "real." However, if they're spot on, then what colors you used don't really matter much in terms of the image looking "correct." Think in grayscale.

Another thing about realism. No matter how realistic you're trying to paint, you still have to break things down into abstract shapes. You'll find that the most realistic paintings are often extremely simple shapes put together in such a way that our brains fill in the "gaps."

play a little with dodge and burn in photoshop to define shapes, paint shadows in area's where the form drastically changes, and a dark bakground helps to let the center of interest be the human, here's a noob try of me it makes alot of difference eh?
and a grayscale version to see the values

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